Abstract
This article examines the possibility of non-fictional life writing in the face of postmodernist critique. With the rise of postmodernism came a fundamental distrust of traditional autobiographies and memoirs claiming to tell the absolute truth. Nonetheless, even postmodern writers continue to publish autobiographical texts labeled as ‘non-fiction’. In American literature, two examples of both sides of this debate are Philip Roth’s 1988 work The Facts and Paul Auster’s Winter Journal, published in 2012. Whereas Roth metafictionally echoes the postmodernist concerns, Auster claims that Winter Journal contains “[n]o elements of fiction”. This article examines whether such a claim can hold. It argues that Auster has indeed found a form of non-fictional life writing that is largely immune to postmodern criticism. Based on Lyotard’s idea of the crisis of master-narratives, it shows that Auster avoids the charge of fictionality by skillfully employing micro-narratives and, paradoxically, by establishing an inherently subjective narrative situation. Winter Journal’s leitmotiv of the author coming to terms with his mortality is not presented as a coherent narrative. Instead, this implicit narrative undercurrent needs to be made explicit by the reader.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
Auster, Paul. 2012a. Winter Journal. New York: Holt.Search in Google Scholar
Auster, Paul. 2013. Report from the Interior. London: Faber & Faber.Search in Google Scholar
Roth, Philip. 2007. The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography. London: Vintage.Search in Google Scholar
Secondary Sources
Auster, Paul. “Paul Auster Talks with Vicente Molina Foix at Fnac Castellana”. YouTube, 27 April 2012b. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXsiW4_WaIo&feature=related> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Auster, Paul. “Winter Journal: Paul Auster in Conversation with Paul Holdengräber”. New York Public Library, 1 October 2012c. <http://www.nypl.org/audiovideo/winter-journal-paul-auster-conversation-paul-holdengr%C3%A4ber> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Eakin, Paul John. 1985. Fictions in Autobiography: Studies in the Art of Self-Invention. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Egan, Susanna. 1984. Patterns of Experience in Autobiography. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Search in Google Scholar
Finney, Brian. 1993. “Roth’s Counterlife: Destabilizing The Facts”. Biography 16.4: 370–387.10.1353/bio.2010.0504Search in Google Scholar
Fischer, Michael M. J. 1994. “Autobiographical Voices (1, 2, 3) and Mosaic Memory: Experimental Sondages in the (Post)modern World”. In: Kathleen Ashley, Leigh Gilmore and Gerald Peters (eds.). Autobiography & Postmodernism. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. 79–129.Search in Google Scholar
Fogarty, Robert S. 2006. “Memoirs True and False”. The Antioch Review 64.4: 780–785.10.2307/4615052Search in Google Scholar
Gregg, Gary S. 2006. “The Raw and the Bland: A Structural Model of Narrative Identity”. In: Dan P. McAdams, Josselson Ruthellen and Amia Lieblich (eds.). Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative. Washington: American Psychological Association. 63–87.Search in Google Scholar
Guðmundsdóttir, Gunnþórunn. 2003. Borderlines: Autobiography and Fiction in Postmodern Life Writing. Postmodern Studies 33. Amsterdam: Rodopi.10.1163/9789401201063Search in Google Scholar
Hamilton, Geoff. 2007. “Mixing Memoir and Desire: James Frey, Wound Culture, and the ‘Essential American Soul’”. The Journal of American Culture 30.3: 324–333.Search in Google Scholar
Hampel, Regine. 2001. “I Write Therefore I Am?” Fictional Autobiography and the Idea of Selfhood in the Postmodern Age. Bern: Lang.Search in Google Scholar
Harré, Rom and Luk van Langenhove. 1991. “Varieties of Positioning”. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 21.4: 393–407.10.1111/j.1468-5914.1991.tb00203.xSearch in Google Scholar
Hornung, Alfred. 1993. “Autobiographie und Fiktion in der amerikanischen Gegenwartsliteratur”. Chelsea Hotel: A Magazine for the Arts 3.1: 36–39.Search in Google Scholar
Hornung, Alfred. 1997. “Autobiography”. In: Hans Bertens and Douwe Fokkema (eds.). International Postmodernism: Theory and Literary Practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 221–233.Search in Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. 1984. Foreword. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. By Jean-François Lyotard. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. vii–xxi.Search in Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1984. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Can Qualify as a Science. Trans. Paul Carus. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Search in Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1989. Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können. Ed. Rudolf Malter. Stuttgart: Reclam.Search in Google Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984a. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.10.2307/1772278Search in Google Scholar
Lyotard, Jean-François. 1984b. “Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?” Trans. Régis Durand. In: Jean-François Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Theory and History of Literature 10. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 71–82.Search in Google Scholar
Nicol, Bran. 2009. The Cambridge Introduction to Postmodern Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511816949Search in Google Scholar
Raggatt, Peter T. F. 2006. “Multiplicity and Conflict in the Dialogical Self: A Life-Narrative Approach”. In: Dan P. McAdams, Josselson Ruthellen and Amia Lieblich (eds.). Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative. Washington: American Psychological Association. 15–35.Search in Google Scholar
Ross, Michael and Michael Conway. 1986. “Remembering One’s Own Past: The Construction of Personal Histories”. In: Richard M. Sorrentino and E. Tony Higgins (eds.). Handbook of Motivation and Cognition: Foundations of Social Behavior. New York: Guilford Press. 122–144.Search in Google Scholar
Roth, Philip. 2001a. “Interview on Zuckerman”. In: Philip Roth: Reading Myself and Others. New York: Vintage. 149–162.Search in Google Scholar
Roth, Philip. 2001b. “Interview with the Paris Review”. In: Philip Roth: Reading Myself and Others. New York: Vintage. 119–148.Search in Google Scholar
Saunders, Max. 2010. Self Impression: Life-Writing, Autobiografiction, and the Forms of Modern Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1999. Mind, Language and Society: Philosophy in the Real World. 1st paperback ed. MasterMinds. New York: Basic Books.Search in Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 2010. Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195396171.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Seidensticker, Edward. 1999. “Autobiography”. Biography 22.1: 46–56.10.1353/bio.2010.0159Search in Google Scholar
Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. 2010. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tuerk, Richard. 2005. “Caught between The Facts and Deception”. In: Derek Parker Royal (ed.). Philip Roth: New Perspectives on an American Author. Westport: Praeger. 129–142.Search in Google Scholar
Vidal, Gore. 1995. Palimpsest: A Memoir. London: Deutsch.Search in Google Scholar
Wallace, David Foster. 2004. “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage”. Harper’s Magazine April: 39–58.Search in Google Scholar
Wirth-Nesher, Hana. 1998. “Facing the Fictions: Henry Roth’s and Philip Roth’s Meta-Memoirs”. Prooftexts 18.3: 259–275.Search in Google Scholar
Book Reviews
Arana, Marie. “Book Review: Winter Journal, a Memoir by Paul Auster”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Washington Post, 17 August 2012. <http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-08-17/opinions/35493437_1_paul-auster-contemporary-nutritional-wisdom-stinging-hornets> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Broening, John. “Book Review: In Winter Journal, Author Paul Auster Turns Work to ‘Winter of His Life’”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Denver Post, 9 September 2012. <http://www.denverpost.com/books/ci_21484373/novelist-turns-work-winter-his-life> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, James. “No More Parents to Mourn”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Wall Street Journal, 23 August 2012. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443989204577601002719857004.html> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Corliss, Cody. “Season’s Greetings: Paul Auster’s Winter Journal”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. Post-Gazette, 26 August 2012. <http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/book-reviews/2012/08/26/Book-review-Season-s-greetings-Paul-Auster-s-Winter-Journal/stories/201208260173#> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Kaplan, Justin. “Play it Again, Nathan”. Rev. of The Facts, Philip Roth. The New York Times on the Web, 25 September 1988. <http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/10/11/specials/roth-autobio.html> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Lemon, Alex. “Winter Journal Is a Graceful, Moving Memoir as the Author Enters His Final Season of Life”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Dallas Morning News, 24 August 2012. <http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainment/books/20120824-winter-journal-by-paul-auster-is-a-graceful-moving-memoir-as-the-author-enters-his-final-season-of-life.ece> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Lennon, J. Robert. “Winter Journal by Paul Auster – Review: J [sic] Robert Lennon Feels Let Down by Paul Auster’s ‘Terrible’ Memoir”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Guardian, 15 August 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/15/winter-journal-paul-auster-review> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Levin, Ann. “Review: ʻWinter Journalʼ by Paul Auster”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. Chicago Sun-Times, 27 September 2012. <http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/books/14619912-421/review-winter-journal-by-paul-auster.html> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Manguso, Sarah. “Correspondence to Self”. Rev. of Report from the Interior, Paul Auster. The New York Times on the Web, 20 December 2013. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/books/review/paul-austers-report-from-the-interior.html?smid=pl-share> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
McAlpin, Heller. “Winter Journal: Paul Auster on Aging, Mortality”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. NPR, 21 August 2012. <http://www.npr.org/2012/08/21/158788902/-winter-journal-paul-auster-on-aging-mortality> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Pizzichini, Lilian. “Winter Journal by Paul Auster: Review”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Telegraph, 18 September 2012. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/biographyandmemoirreviews/9543994/Winter-Journal-by-Paul-Auster-review.html> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Ulin, David L. “Disconnected Tales Mar Auster’s Winter Journal”. Rev. of Winter Journal, Paul Auster. The Bend Bulletin, 9 September 2012. <http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20120909/NEWS0107/209090301/> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Dictionaries
Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2014. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica. <http://www.britannica.com> [accessed 28 May 2014].Search in Google Scholar
Handbook = A Handbook to Literature. 2003. Ed. William Harmon. 9th ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall.Search in Google Scholar
Metzler Lexikon Literatur. 2007. Eds. Dieter Burdorf, Christoph Fasbender and Burkhard Moennighoff. 3rd ed. Stuttgart: Metzler.Search in Google Scholar
OED = The Oxford English Dictionary. 1989. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Penguin = The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. 1999. Ed. J. A. Cuddon. 4th ed. London: Penguin.Search in Google Scholar
Webster’s Third = Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. 1981. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica.Search in Google Scholar
© 2014 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
